A black-browed babbler on a branch in Bornean forest, its dark eye-stripe and rust-brown back clearly visible.

Ray of Hope

Sometimes we are wrong about extinction.

Someone kept looking — down a lava field, up a limestone spire, into the last card of a camera trap on the last day of an expedition — and found the animal alive. Below are 29 species science had stopped expecting to see.

Species found again
29
Longest measured absence
331 yrs
Combined years missing
1,940
Still listed as gone
—

Those totals leave out 8 species whose absence cannot honestly be counted in years — they are known only from fossils, or the date of the last record is genuinely disputed. Those records say so instead of guessing.

Photograph: Panji Gusti Akbar, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0, file). Photographed in 2021 — a later bird than the one two men found in October 2020.

What earns a place on this list

We use the published definition of a lost species rather than our own, so you can check us: Long & Rodríguez (2022), Oryx ↗

  1. 1

    Not documented in the wild for at least ten years. Most entries here ran far longer than that. One ran past three centuries.

  2. 2

    Not surviving in captivity. A species held in a breeding programme was never lost, so it cannot be found. Captive breeding is a rescue and it belongs on conservation wins, not here.

  3. 3

    Documented alive again, and published. Every entry names the place and links a paper, a preprint, a Red List assessment or the institution that made the find. No entry cites an encyclopedia.

  4. 4

    The absence is stated only as far as the evidence goes. Where sources disagree on the last record, this page prints a sentence instead of a number. 8 records do.

2020s7 finds

  1. Museum specimen photograph: Attenborough's Long-beaked Echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi)
    Specimen photograph: Naturalis Biodiversity Center, via Wikimedia Commons. The 1961 specimen that was the species' only record for 62 years. (CC0, file)
    01 / 29

    62years
    missing

    Attenborough's Long-beaked Echidna

    Zaglossus attenboroughi

    Last recorded 1961Found 2023

    On the last day of a four-week expedition, on the final SD card collected, three frames showed a spiny, beaked animal shuffling through leaf litter — the first evidence in 62 years that Attenborough's long-beaked echidna still exists. The team, led by the Indonesian NGO YAPPENDA with Cenderawasih University students and Oxford researchers, had deployed 80 cameras and climbed more than 36,000 vertical feet, guided by Indigenous knowledge of the mountains.

    Found at
    Cyclops Mountains, Papua Province, Indonesia
    Full species record
  2. Photograph: De Winton's Golden Mole (Cryptochloris wintoni)
    Photograph: Jp le Roux, via iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 4.0, file)
    02 / 29

    87years
    missing

    De Winton's Golden Mole

    Cryptochloris wintoni

    Last recorded 1936Found 2023

    A scent-detection dog picked up fresh trails across the dunes at Port Nolloth, and more than a hundred soil samples yielded the genetic signature the team had been chasing: De Winton's golden mole, an iridescent blind burrower unseen since 1936. Endangered Wildlife Trust, Stellenbosch and Pretoria researchers confirmed the animal by sequencing environmental DNA, then caught and swabbed one. A second was found in the same dunes.

    Found at
    Port Nolloth dunes, Northern Cape, South Africa
    Full species record
  3. Photograph: Fagilde's Trapdoor Spider (Nemesia berlandi)
    Photograph: Shenriquesbio, via Wikimedia Commons. The trapdoor of a Fagilde's trapdoor spider burrow at Quinta da Tapada — the lid is usually all anyone sees of the animal. (CC BY-SA 4.0, file)
    03 / 29

    92years
    missing

    Fagilde's Trapdoor Spider

    Nemesia berlandi

    Last recorded 1931Found 2023

    Sérgio Henriques cut open the side of a horizontal burrow in a Portuguese woodland and found an adult female trapdoor spider guarding about ten spiderlings. The species had not been seen since Amélia Bacelar described it in 1931, from the same small district. Two years of searching and a DNA comparison that ruled out every other trapdoor spider in the region stood between the first suspected burrow and the confirmed record.

    Found at
    Fagilde, Mangualde municipality, Beira Alta, Portugal
  4. Photograph: Santa Marta Sabrewing (Campylopterus phainopeplus)
    Photograph: Andres Cuervo, via Wikimedia Commons. A male Santa Marta sabrewing delivering its advertising song. (CC BY-SA 2.0, file)
    04 / 29

    12years
    missing

    Santa Marta Sabrewing

    Campylopterus phainopeplus

    Last recorded 2010Found 2022

    Leaving a survey site in July 2022, local birdwatcher Yurgen Vega raised his binoculars at a hummingbird singing from a perch and found himself looking at a male Santa Marta sabrewing — emerald body, iridescent blue throat, curved bill. The bird had not been documented since 2010 and had only three confirmed records since its description in 1879. Its territorial song suggested a resident population along the Guatapurí River.

    Found at
    Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
    Full species record
  5. Lithograph: Black-naped Pheasant Pigeon (Otidiphaps insularis)
    Lithograph by John Gerrard Keulemans, 19th century, public domain. No free photograph of the black-naped pheasant-pigeon exists. (Public domain, file)
    05 / 29

    126years
    missing

    Black-naped Pheasant Pigeon

    Otidiphaps insularis

    Last recorded 1896Found 2022

    A Cornell Lab–led expedition rediscovered the black-naped pheasant-pigeon on camera trap in September 2022, ending 126 years without a documented record. Indigenous hunters on Fergusson Island, who know the bird as Auwo, described it as still present and directed the team where to set traps. One of two successful captures came from a camera placed on their advice.

    Found at
    Fergusson Island, Papua New Guinea
  6. Historical illustration: Williamson's Velvet Worm (Typhloperipatus williamsoni)
    Plate from Kemp, Records of the Indian Museum (1914), public domain. No free photograph of this species exists. (Public domain, file)
    06 / 29

    111years
    missing

    Williamson's Velvet Worm

    Typhloperipatus williamsoni

    Last recorded 1911Found 2022

    A blind, soil-dwelling velvet worm collected once on the Abor Expedition of 1911-12 and never seen again was found by researchers from ATREE working the leaf litter of the Siang Valley — the same country Stanley Kemp had walked a century earlier. Velvet worms have changed little in 500 million years; this one had gone 111 of them unrecorded.

    Kemp described the species in 1913 from material collected in 1911-12. The rediscovery was published in the Journal of Natural History in 2025.

    Found at
    Siang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, Eastern Himalayas, India
  7. Photograph: Black-browed Babbler (Malacocincla perspicillata)
    Photograph: Panji Gusti Akbar, via Wikimedia Commons. A black-browed babbler in South Kalimantan, photographed in 2021 — a later bird than the two men found in 2020. (CC BY 4.0, file)
    07 / 29

    172years
    missing

    Black-browed Babbler

    Malacocincla perspicillata

    Last recorded 1848Found 2020

    Known from a single specimen collected in the mid-1840s, the black-browed babbler vanished from the record for 172 years — the longest gap of any Asian bird. In October 2020 two local men photographed and briefly held a live bird in a South Kalimantan forest before releasing it, ending one of ornithology's great mysteries.

    Found at
    South Kalimantan, Borneo

2010s9 finds

  1. No photograph in our records

    Tragulus versicolor

    Last recorded 1990 · Found again 2019

    08 / 29

    29years
    missing

    Silver-backed Chevrotain

    Tragulus versicolor

    Last recorded 1990Found 2019

    An Nguyen pulled the memory card from a camera trap in Vietnam's coastal scrub and found 275 frames of a rabbit-sized animal with fanged jaws and a silver-sheened rump — the first images of a living silver-backed chevrotain. The world's smallest ungulate had not been recorded since 1990. Villager and ranger interviews guided the camera placement; an expanded 29-camera survey then logged 1,881 more images and confirmed a population.

    Found at
    Dry coastal forest near Nha Trang, southern Vietnam
  2. Photograph: Somali Sengi (Galegeeska revoilii)
    Photograph: Steven Heritage, from Heritage et al., PeerJ 8:e9652 (2020), via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY 4.0, file)
    09 / 29

    51years
    missing

    Somali Sengi

    Galegeeska revoilii

    Last recorded 1968Found 2019

    Steven Heritage opened the very first of 1,259 traps set across Djibouti's boulder fields and saw a tuft of hair on the tip of a tiny tail — the diagnostic mark of a Somali sengi, unrecorded anywhere since 1968. The team went on to observe twelve animals. DNA later moved the species into a new genus, Galegeeska, and the population proved healthy enough for the species to be reassessed as Least Concern.

    Found at
    Rocky outcrops in Djibouti, Horn of Africa
  3. Museum specimen photograph: Wallace's Giant Bee (Megachile pluto)
    Specimen photograph: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, via Wikimedia Commons. Clay Bolt's 2019 photographs of the living bee are not freely licensed. (CC BY 4.0, file)
    10 / 29

    38years
    missing

    Wallace's Giant Bee

    Megachile pluto

    Last recorded 1981Found 2019

    Photographer Clay Bolt climbed to a termite mound lodged in a tree on a North Moluccan island in January 2019, put his headlamp to the entrance, and a bee the length of a thumb with jaws like a stag beetle looked back. The world's largest bee had not been seen alive since Adam Messer's observations in 1981. Bolt took the first photographs and video ever made of a living Megachile pluto.

    Found at
    North Moluccas (Bacan, Halmahera, Tidore), Indonesia
    Full species record
  4. Historical illustration: Fernandina Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis phantasticus)
    Plate from Van Denburgh, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences (1914), public domain. This is the male Rollo Beck collected on Fernandina on 5 April 1906 — the single specimen that was the species' entire record until Fernanda. (Public domain, file)
    11 / 29

    113years
    missing

    Fernandina Giant Tortoise

    Chelonoidis phantasticus

    Last recorded 1906Found 2019

    On a 2019 expedition across Fernandina's raw lava fields, a joint Galápagos Conservancy and National Park team found an elderly female tortoise resting in a pocket of vegetation. Her species was known from a single male collected in 1906 and had been written off ever since. Genome sequencing at Yale confirmed she shared a lineage with that lone museum animal. Named Fernanda, she may be the last of her kind.

    Found at
    Fernandina Island, Galápagos, Ecuador
    Full species record
  5. Historical illustration: Voeltzkow's Chameleon (Furcifer voeltzkowi)
    Plate from Voeltzkow, Reise in Ostafrika (1913), public domain. Drawn from the material collected when the species was last seen before 2018. (Public domain, file)
    12 / 29

    105years
    missing

    Voeltzkow's Chameleon

    Furcifer voeltzkowi

    Last recorded 1913Found 2018

    After six fruitless nights searching forest in northwestern Madagascar, the expedition team found their quarry in an overgrown hotel garden: three males and fifteen females of a chameleon unrecorded since 1913. Females had never been described. Under stress or when pregnant they flushed purple, red and orange over black and white. Genetic and morphological work confirmed the species is distinct from its closest relative, Labord's chameleon.

    Found at
    Northwestern Madagascar
  6. Photograph: Blue-eyed Ground Dove (Columbina cyanopis)
    Photograph: Hector Bottai, via Wikimedia Commons. Rolinha-do-planalto reserve, Botumirim, Minas Gerais. (CC BY-SA 4.0, file)
    13 / 29

    74years
    missing

    Blue-eyed Ground Dove

    Columbina cyanopis

    Last recorded 1941Found 2015

    Doing fieldwork in the Cerrado in June 2015, ornithologist Rafael Bessa stopped at an unfamiliar song and traced it to a small dove with startling blue eyes — a species with no confirmed record since 1941. At least twelve birds were present. The find moved the species from presumed extinct to Critically Endangered and triggered land purchases and the creation of Botumirim State Park to protect the only known population.

    Found at
    Cerrado grassland, Minas Gerais, Brazil
    Full species record
  7. Historical illustration: Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis)
    Plate by Elizabeth Gould for John Gould's Birds of Australia, public domain. Photographs of living night parrots exist but none is freely licensed. (Public domain, file)
    14 / 29

    A century with no living bird documented

    Night Parrot

    Pezoporus occidentalis

    Not measurableFound 2013

    After a century of failed expeditions, naturalist John Young captured the first photographs and video of a living night parrot in remote Queensland spinifex country in May 2013. Two dead birds had turned up in the interim, in 1990 and 2006, but no living animal had been documented since the 1910s. Sustained acoustic survey work has since found small populations in western Queensland and on Martu and Ngururrpa country in Western Australia.

    The 2013 record stands. Young's later night parrot records do not: an independent Australian Wildlife Conservancy review in 2019 could not substantiate them, and some were withdrawn. The populations found since have been confirmed by other teams, and they are not inside predator-proof fencing.

    Found at
    Western Queensland, Australia
    Full species record

  8. No photograph in our records

    Pharotis imogene

    Last recorded 1890 · Found again 2012

    15 / 29

    122years
    missing

    New Guinea Big-eared Bat

    Pharotis imogene

    Last recorded 1890Found 2012

    Checking traps set in degraded grassland near Kamali in July 2012, PhD students Julie Broken-Brow and Catherine Hughes removed a small bat with outsized ears that they could not identify. It sat unrecognised until 2014, when Australian Museum researcher Harry Parnaby matched it to Pharotis imogene, known only from specimens Lamberto Loria collected in 1890. One animal ended 122 years of presumed extinction.

    Found at
    Abau District, Central Province, Papua New Guinea
    Full species record
  9. Photograph: Hula Painted Frog (Latonia nigriventer)
    Photograph: Uzi Paz, via the PikiWiki Israel free image collection and Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY 2.5, file)
    16 / 29

    56years
    missing

    Hula Painted Frog

    Latonia nigriventer

    Last recorded 1955Found 2011

    On a routine patrol through the Hula reserve in 2011, ranger Yoram Malka spotted a dark frog with a mottled belly hopping across the path and caught it by hand. It was the Hula painted frog — the first amphibian the IUCN ever declared extinct, in 1996, after the last specimen in 1955 and the draining of the Hula marshes. A second animal turned up that November. Its genus was otherwise known only from European fossils.

    Found at
    Hula Nature Reserve, northern Israel
    Full species record

2000s5 finds

  1. No photograph in our records

    Tarsius pumilus

    Found again 2008

    17 / 29

    No living animal studied between 1921 and 2008

    Pygmy Tarsier

    Tarsius pumilus

    Not measurableFound 2008

    In August 2008, on a cold, mossy mountainside above 1,800 metres in Lore Lindu National Park, Sharon Gursky's Texas A&M team pulled three living pygmy tarsiers from mist nets — two males and a female, each smaller than a mouse, with claws instead of nails. Collectors had taken the last specimens in 1921 and no field team had found one since. Gursky's animals were fitted with radio collars, and gave the first behavioural data ever recorded for the species.

    Not a clean absence: rat trappers in Central Sulawesi killed a pygmy tarsier in 2000, so the species was not wholly unrecorded across the interval. 2008 was the first time living animals were caught and studied.

    Found at
    Mount Rore Katimbo, Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
    Full species record
  2. Photograph: Madagascar Pochard (Aythya innotata)
    Photograph: Frank Vassen, via Wikimedia Commons. A Madagascar pochard in the breeding programme set up after the 2006 rediscovery. (CC BY 2.0, file)
    18 / 29

    15years
    missing

    Madagascar Pochard

    Aythya innotata

    Last recorded 1991Found 2006

    In November 2006 a survey team at a remote crater lake in northern Madagascar counted nine adult diving ducks with four freshly hatched ducklings. The Madagascar pochard had last been confirmed in 1991, when a lone male taken from Lake Alaotra died in captivity a year after capture; three intensive search campaigns since had found nothing. The IUCN had just moved it to Possibly Extinct. The rediscovery reversed that listing.

    Found at
    Lake Matsaborimena, northern Madagascar
    Full species record
  3. Photograph: Laotian Rock Rat (Laonastes aenigmamus)
    Photograph: Jean-Pierre Hugot, from PLOS ONE 7(11):e48145, via Wikimedia Commons. A young male. (CC BY 2.5, file)
    19 / 29

    Its family was known only from fossils roughly 11 million years old

    Laotian Rock Rat

    Laonastes aenigmamus

    Not measurableFound 2005

    A squirrel-tailed rodent for sale on a meat table in a Lao market led scientists to a family of mammals last known from fossils roughly 11 million years old. Described as a new species in 2005, Laonastes was placed a year later inside Diatomyidae, a family extinct since the late Miocene. The palaeontologist Mary Dawson called it the coelacanth of rodents. Live animals were filmed in the wild in 2006.

    Found at
    Limestone karst of Khammouan Province, Laos
  4. Photograph: Bocourt's Terror Skink (Phoboscincus bocourti)
    Photograph: Théo Decourt, via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 4.0, file)
    20 / 29

    127years
    missing

    Bocourt's Terror Skink

    Phoboscincus bocourti

    Last recorded 1876Found 2003

    On a sea-snake expedition to a tiny islet off New Caledonia's Isle of Pines in December 2003, herpetologist Ivan Ineich came face to face with a half-metre lizard armed with long, curved, needle-sharp teeth. The terror skink was known from one specimen collected around 1876 and had been presumed extinct.

    The year is contested — some accounts date a first rediscovery to 1993. Further animals were recorded in 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2018.

    Found at
    Islet off the Isle of Pines, New Caledonia
    Full species record
  5. Photograph: Lord Howe Island Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis)
    Photograph: Granitethighs, via Wikimedia Commons. Lord Howe Island Palm Nursery, 2011. (CC BY-SA 3.0, file)
    21 / 29

    81years
    missing

    Lord Howe Island Stick Insect

    Dryococelus australis

    Last recorded 1920Found 2001

    Climbing a bare volcanic spire in the Tasman Sea at night, David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile's team swept torchlight across a single Melaleuca shrub 100 metres above the surf and found roughly 24 glossy black insects the size of a hand. Black rats off the wrecked SS Makambo had wiped the tree lobster from Lord Howe Island by 1920. It had survived eight decades on one bush.

    Found at
    Ball's Pyramid, 23 km off Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, Australia
    Full species record

1990s3 finds

  1. Photograph: Gilbert's Potoroo (Potorous gilbertii)
    Photograph: Mick Wackers, via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY 3.0, file)
    22 / 29

    Last collected in the 1800s, presumed extinct since about 1909

    Gilbert's Potoroo

    Potorous gilbertii

    Not measurableFound 1994

    Trapping wallabies at Two Peoples Bay in December 1994, researcher Liz Sinclair found a small, truffle-eating marsupial in her net that did not match anything living in the region. Comparison against museum skeletons confirmed Gilbert's potoroo, last collected near King George Sound in the 1800s and considered extinct since about 1909. It is now Australia's most endangered marsupial.

    Sources give the final historical record variously as the 1870s or the 1890s, so no last-seen year is asserted here.

    Found at
    Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve, Western Australia
    Full species record
  2. Historical illustration: Western Woolly Flying Squirrel (Eupetaurus cinereus)
    Plate by Richard Lydekker, public domain. For a century the species was known almost entirely from Victorian study skins like the one drawn here. (Public domain, file)
    23 / 29

    Known almost only from Victorian study skins for a century

    Western Woolly Flying Squirrel

    Eupetaurus cinereus

    Not measurableFound 1994

    Guided by villagers who collected the animal's droppings for use in traditional medicine, Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation Society captured a living woolly flying squirrel in a high Karakoram cave in 1994 — a cat-sized glider known almost entirely from Victorian study skins. Zahler published the rediscovery in the Journal of Mammalogy in 1996.

    Accounts of the last prior record differ, ranging from the 1888 description to the 1920s, so no single year is asserted here.

    Found at
    Northern Pakistan, Gilgit region (Chitral, Astor, Skardu)
    Full species record
  3. Historical illustration: Cebu Flowerpecker (Dicaeum quadricolor)
    Plate by Joseph Smit, public domain, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library. (Public domain, file)
    24 / 29

    86years
    missing

    Cebu Flowerpecker

    Dicaeum quadricolor

    Last recorded 1906Found 1992

    In 1992, surveying one of the last scraps of limestone forest at Tabunan, ornithologists watched a small bird with a scarlet back and white flanks work the canopy — the Cebu flowerpecker, unrecorded since 1906 and assumed lost when Cebu's forests were cleared to a fraction of one percent of their original cover. It has since been found at Nug-as, Mount Lantoy and Dalaguete, and remains Critically Endangered.

    Found at
    Tabunan limestone forest, Central Cebu Protected Landscape, Philippines
    Full species record

1980sone find

  1. Photograph: Jerdon's Courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus)
    Photograph: P. Jeganathan, via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 3.0, file)
    25 / 29

    No confirmed record for more than eighty years

    Jerdon's Courser

    Rhinoptilus bitorquatus

    Not measurableFound 1986

    In January 1986 a local trapper's net in the scrub of Andhra Pradesh held a nightjar-like bird nobody could place. Bharat Bhushan, an ornithologist with the Bombay Natural History Society, examined the yellow-based black bill, the buff eyebrow and the twin brown breast bands, and confirmed Jerdon's courser — unseen for over eighty years. It survives today mainly in the Sri Lankamalleswara sanctuary.

    Sources differ on the last record before 1986; around 1900 is the figure usually cited, so no single year is asserted here. The linked Oryx paper reports the tracking-strip and camera surveys that followed the rediscovery.

    Found at
    Cuddapah (Kadapa) district, Andhra Pradesh, India
    Full species record

1970sone find

  1. Photograph: Chacoan Peccary (Catagonus wagneri)
    Photograph: Dave Pape, public domain. Phoenix Zoo. (Public domain, file)
    26 / 29

    Described in 1930 from fossils alone and assumed long dead

    Chacoan Peccary

    Catagonus wagneri

    Not measurableFound 1971

    A pig known to Chaco hunters as the tagua turned out to be an animal Western science had described in 1930 from fossils alone and assumed long dead. Living animals were confirmed in Argentina's Salta Province in 1971, and Ralph Wetzel's fieldwork in the Paraguayan Chaco brought the find to the wider scientific world. It remains one of the twentieth century's most striking Lazarus taxa, and is now threatened by Chaco clearance.

    Found at
    Gran Chaco, Salta Province, Argentina, and the Paraguayan Chaco
    Full species record

1950sone find

  1. Photograph: Bermuda Petrel (Cahow) (Pterodroma cahow)
    Photograph: steve b, via iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons. A cahow at sea. (CC0, file)
    27 / 29

    331years
    missing

    Bermuda Petrel (Cahow)

    Pterodroma cahow

    Last recorded 1620Found 1951

    The cahow disappeared in the early 1600s after rats, pigs and human harvest devastated its breeding colonies. Three centuries later, on 28 January 1951, ornithologist Robert Cushman Murphy and 15-year-old David Wingate found 18 nesting pairs on tiny offshore islets. Active recovery work has since pushed the population past 130 breeding pairs.

    Found at
    Castle Harbour islets, Bermuda
    Full species record

1940sone find

  1. Photograph: Takahē (Porphyrio hochstetteri)
    Photograph: Pseudopanax, via Wikimedia Commons. A male takahē. (Public domain, file)
    28 / 29

    50years
    missing

    Takahē

    Porphyrio hochstetteri

    Last recorded 1898Found 1948

    Declared extinct after the last specimens in the 1890s, the flightless takahē was rediscovered by Dr Geoffrey Orbell in a remote alpine valley of Fiordland in November 1948. Decades of intensive predator control and translocation to predator-free islands have lifted the total population — wild, island and managed birds combined — above 500.

    Found at
    Murchison Mountains, Fiordland, New Zealand
    Full species record

1930sone find

  1. Illustration: Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae)
    Image: Citron, via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 3.0, file)
    29 / 29

    Known only from fossils about 66 million years old

    Coelacanth

    Latimeria chalumnae

    Not measurableFound 1938

    Known only from 66-million-year-old fossils, the coelacanth was hauled aboard a trawler off the South African coast in December 1938. Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer recognised it as a fish unknown to science. Two species of coelacanth survive in the deep waters off East Africa and Indonesia.

    Found at
    East London, South Africa
    Full species record

Every entry here started as somebody deciding to look one more time.

Most of these finds came from people on foot in the places they know best — a ranger on patrol, a birdwatcher packing up for the day, villagers who had known the animal all along. None of them was a specialist sent to find that species. The record is only as good as what gets reported.

Log a sightingSee what is still missingConservation wins